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Summary Statement

A handout focusing on the impact of smoking on your children. Part of a collection. Click on the 'collection' button to access the other items.
2001

What do you bring home to your family?

As a union member
you bring home a
good paycheck.
You bring home health benefits.
You take care of your family.

Do you also
bring home
disease
and death?

Every day you are exposed to toxic
substances on the job. You try to use
the proper respirators and other
precautions. If your work exposes
you to asbestos, lead dust or other
hazards you probably change your
clothes before going home so that
you don’t expose your family to
those toxics.

When you confront Lead, Carbon
Monoxide, Toluene, and MEK on
the job, you know that you should
take special precautions. Tobacco
contains these very same ingredients.
In fact, tobacco smoke contains more
than 4,000 chemicals — at least 50 of
these are carcinogenic.

Tobacco is toxic too!

The Environmental Protection
Agency has classified secondhand
smoke as a “Group A” carcinogen –
the most dangerous category of
cancer-causing agent.

That’s why the State Building
Trades Council started the BUILT project. We want to protect
workers from the hazards of
secondhand smoke, and we want
to help smokers quit. It all begins
with your family.

Tobacco
hurts our
children

Ear Infections

Up to 11.1% of all ear infections in children
under the age of 3 in California are caused
by secondhand smoke.1

Asthma

Secondhand smoke causes up to 3,000 new
childhood asthma cases in California each
year.1

Respiratory Infections

Among infants and toddlers under 18
months, secondhand smoke is blamed for
up to 36,000 cases of bronchitis and
pneumonia in California. 1

SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)

Smoke from parents’ cigarettes is responsible
for an estimated 120 cases of sudden
infant death syndrome in California. 1

Kids become smokers

If you smoke, your children are twice as
likely to become smokers as well.2

When young people start, the nicotine
addiction kicks in within 2-3 days, so then
they can’t just quit. 3

More than 80% of smokers want to quit 4…but the best way to quit is not to start
smoking in the first place.

Benefits of a smoke free home

HEALTHIER CHILDREN – The tobacco companies
have not disputed the research that
shows the negative health effects that cigarette
smoke has on children.

FEWER DOCTOR VISITS – Healthier children
mean fewer trips to the doctor and less
time off to make those visits.

LOWER HEALTH CARE COSTS – Healthier
children means less money for out-of-pocket
health costs. By growing up healthier, children
will incur lower health care costs in their future.

LESS CHANCE YOUR CHILDREN WILL
BECOME SMOKERS – Children of smokers
are almost twice as likely to smoke as are
children of parents who never smoked.
You can avoid passing along a bad habit.

What can you do?

Don’t smoke in your house.

Don’t let others smoke in your house.

Don’t smoke in your car.

If you smoke – quit!
There is a program that can help you.

Call the California Smokers’ Helpline1-800-NO-BUTTS
This free and confidential service helps you
find the most effective way for you to quit.

This material was made possible by funds from the Tobacco Tax
Health Protection Act of 988—Proposition 99, through the
California Department of Health Services (contract #99-85070).

This brochure is being distributed by
your Health and Welfare Trust Fund.
It was produced by BUILT — a project of the
State Building and Construction Trades Council of California
that works directly with construction unions,
apprenticeship programs and Health and Welfare funds.
Our staff has developed educational resources
about the health impacts of tobacco and toxics
on construction sites
and we provide resources to help construction workers
and their family members quit if they choose to.
For more information about BUILT call us at 916-442-8368.